Movie & culture series (II) - Trailers (Finale)

Trailer, trailer, did you know you fascinate me a lot? Every time when I saw you, I just want to watch your full version in cinema nearby...However, suddenly I found that you have many brothers and sisters, all of them have different clothes and speak in different languages... Oh, which should I watch...



The answer is, watch them both on the same time! Moreover, as we know, the culture between Western and Eastern countries are quite different, we can view that differences on  - movie trailers too! In our mind, we often know the differences between 2 cultures, but we often are speechless while we need to describe their unique characteristics clearly. However, in the movie trailer, according to their using of background music, or the orders or which scenes they strongly put emphasis on  can show their differences.


Poster from http://www.filmofilia.com/2009/07/23/new-2012-poster/

Only words are not enough, maybe have a  look on the trailer of "2012" first? I chose the 4th Japanese trailer(above) and the US 2nd trailer. Although the number of trailer is not the same, you may found out the first 30 seconds have lots of similarities. Like their words/slogan are the same, the scenes are the same - Of course! They showed the same movies! But do not close them immediately, the climax will start from 0:50!





You may found that the background music and the scenes they choose are not the same after 50 seconds, but they still have some identical elements. For example, both of them try to create a circumstance of Doom, they all tried to use rapid scenes to overwhelmed the audiences and often used scenes of something collapsed, like the shopping mall or the highway.

Japan, representative of Eastern culture
Why I choose Japan as a representative of Eastern culture, it is simple. Japan is somehow a traditional nation, also it prefer the products of Japanese more than Western one, even for a Western movie, they will make a different version with the original version. Because of that, it would be easier for us to recognize the differences between Western and Eastern.

Obviously, the Japanese trailers focus on the religion first, it used psalm as background music with sorrowful scenes to build up an atmosphere of tragedy and attempt to let audience have an imagination of the end of the Earth, such as the church collapses, to made them desperate.

Besides of that, the Japanese focus on the relationship between families. For example, it used a humour scene of father and daughter discussing the catastrophic scene of fire balls.

Click here to see larger trailer once more! 
"Daddy, what was that?"
"Don't look at that! Just look at me! Do I look scared?"
 "Umm!"
The Japanese trailer shows the relationship between father and daughter at first. Then, it shows the family hug together and father said, "No matter what happens, we will all stay together". At the end, we can see a scene of father tried to save his daughter.

As "2012" is a movie of catastrophe, the catastrophic scenes are needed. However, the Japanese, unlike the US, it will focus more on the communication or the relationship of people. Also, it tried to portray the event in a tragic way.


US, representative of Western culture
Why I choose US as the representative of Western culture? It is simple, it is the main producer of movies, just like the Hollywood! The trailers' approach should be near the producers' notions.

After the scene of father and daughter, the major differences appears. In this US trailer, we can see that, it focused on the action scene more than relationship among people. Moreover, at the scene when the church collapse, it plays the sound effect of people scream, to made an attempt to scare audiences.

Click here to see larger trailer once more!

Then, it used superb background music and rapid scenes to attract audiences' attentions. Moreover, it focused on people's struggle against the Doom. For example, it shows the scene of President argues with others because of their different views. Then, we can see people stampede into the ship built by the government. At last, we can see some action scenes with scary music and the scene of family hug each other as a finale.

For the US trailer, it is evident that, it tend to use a technique of using scenes to overwhelm you and use a touching scene to end the trailer. It just like push you to the peak of the mountain, then push you down the mountain at last. This huge contrast may draw your desire and pay for it at the cinema.

2012 is a movie made by US, maybe we can see a movie made by Japan? Howl's moving castle! The first is from Japan and the latter is from US.






Poster from http://item.rakuten.co.jp/jigsawclub/am1000-243/


The difference between Japanese and US is more clear than the 2012 trailer. It is obvious that Japanese put emphasis on relationship of people and the daily life scene. On the contrast, US trailer focused on the action or splendid views, also, the romantic relationship between the main character and heroine, moreover, they often shows the heroic scene of main character.

Got it?

Japanese often use some scenes or trivia to imply the feelings of the characters, also focused on relationship of people. US mainly focused on the spectacular scenes or the rapid scenes. Both the culture could saw the same things differently, for instance, the "2012" church collapse scene, this may be scary in Americans eyes, but be sorrowful in Japanese eyes. If you want to know more of this phenomenon, maybe you can have a check of "High-context" and "Low-context" culture on books, this website or simply on Wikipedia!

Trailer is to catch audiences' attentions and boost their desire to pay for this movie, therefore it must suit for their own tastes and culture, otherwise it may lost its effect of attracting people. Therefore, we can simply see the major differences between cultures through movie trailers!

Read more! 


2012 Official website

Howl's moving castle US official website

Wikipedia of High/Low context culture

Communicating Across Cultures - High/Low Context description

Movie & culture series(II) - Trailers

Hey! What will you do if your favorite bag or tee arrived to HK?
Will you stand in the queue in midnight waiting the shop open?
Let see how people show their love to movie!=]



They are the big fans of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon (official website)". Althought it is just a video which the two girls want to make fun of the film.

However, it may be a real scene of the fans.
According to the trailer of ""The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Click to watch the trailer)" which broadcast to the world in 2009 MTV Movie Awards that on the first day that attracted more than 4.2 million people .
It is very interested that the two girls make fun of the trailer to show their love.

Why they do so?
 

It showed a different culture bump of the culture of the Western and Chinese culture. When you search in YouTube, you may not find some reaction of the people in Chinese countries which they just watch the movie and just discuss at forum or just watched it only.

However, you can search a lots of video which took by the western people to show their love to the movie they love. It showed a deep side of the people of what they are thinking and may appealed some of the character of the people. For example, the western especially the Americans whom are more willing to show their passions of the things they love but Chinese are not really showing what they are thinking.


Will you make some video to show your reaction of the movie?





Let's MAKE FUN! =]


Know more:

Move thee reviews
http://www.mov-reviews.com

MovieSoon Hong Kong
http://moviesoonhk.com/

Movie & culture series - Movie posters (3)



The following posters are the old days movie posters. Let's have a game before starting the article, can you guess the price of the following posters?
Let guess "MONACO"'s poster,what is your answer?






photos from  http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/template/apple_sub/art_main.php?iss_id=20070321&sec_id=38163&subsec_id=6038907&art_id=6919789


$500?$1500?$3500?Maybe you just think that it is not worth to pay any things to buy it.
Actually the price of the poster is $88000(HKD). It may be the most expensive poster of the world. And the other poster is also with a very high price.You may think it is absurd to buy the above poster.

However for the poster-lovers or collectors, it is worthy because they treat these posters as an artistic production.

電影海報我都是當油畫來畫,教畫的老師曾說,藝術反映生活,反映內心,對我來講,沒有左右派之分,繪畫只要人有思想。
那時我們要先進戲院看試映場,明白了故事才開始畫。我對電影興趣一般,虛榮心也不太重,無所謂能否接觸明星,只是喜歡畫畫。
From 陳楚鴻

 

From the ex-creator of poster ,Chan told us a story about the change of the film poster. For the past drawer, they will view the poster as a major thing of the movie.It is a must compent of the movie to help the audiences to have a better and completed understanding of the movie.

It is quite different from now as we can see the poster creator treat the poster as a production of the movie and may not important for the movie.The producer of the movie will forcus more on the trailer of the movie as it is the mass media to attract the audience.


The history of the film poster


(From Lille, Poster Gallery, London (Reel Poster Gallery) the owner of Bruce Marchant said, the poster market in the 1990s, only began to appear.)
 

Originally, film posters were produced for the exclusive use by the theatres exhibiting the film the poster was created for, and the copies of the posters were required to be returned to the distributor after the film left the theatre.

In the United States, posters were usually returned to a nation-wide operation called the National Screen Service (NSS) which printed and distributed most of the film posters for the studios between 1940 and 1984.


As an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theatre. During this time, a film could stay in circulation for several years, and so many old film posters were badly worn before being retired into storage at an NSS warehouse (most often, they were thrown away when they were no longer needed or had become too worn to be used again). Those posters which were not returned were often thrown away by the theatre owner, but some film posters found their way into the hands of collectors.


Beginning in the 1980s, the American film studios began taking over direct production and distribution of their posters from the National Screen Service and the process of making and distributing film posters became decentralised in that country.


Conclusion
From this generation , many people will just buy the ticket to watch the movie ,the other production of the movie are always be annoyed by the audiences.However ,to make the film more attractive to the people ,the prducer and sponsor should not only forcus on the movie and the trailer but also pay more effort on the side-production to make the movie more life-longing.

Movie & culture series - Movie posters (2)

Have you ever watch a movie poster that really memorable?
Or you have some movie poster which is special to you?
But,do you know the reason of their design??

In the above poster, we can see the poster of love the design of the film are generally from the male and female for the entire poster theme.

April Bride
(生命最後一個月的花嫁 /余命1ヶ月の花嫁)
April Bride Japanese Official website
 
Photo from
http://jackyheimovie.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=1972802



The time traveler's wife
(時空旅行者的戀人)
 




Another poster from the male and female in the position also reflected the male and female in the drama in the relationship.

As April Bride, a man has been hoping to complete the wish of the female lead, so posters can be seen from the actor on the heroine's determination and wish to complete the eyes of love, from the heroine in the eyes of love, in fact, the performance of a heroine of the actor's hesitation, but she is also the appreciation of the male lead in our employees.

From male and female also shows that while the position angle is a couple of man and woman, but because the female lead of the disease, the two did not show a very close relationship, but with the middle distance, to reflect that the couple if they could eventually come to end it?


Similarly, the time traveler's wife (click for larger poster), we can see the relationship between male and female, because the film refers to the actor has been forced to walk through time and space of the disease, so that the female lead has been waiting for, even if the two had been married, but there are husbands is equal to no.

Therefore, the poster on the formation of a heroine with the actor while relying on each other, but both remained independent. However, the situation in the heroine's eyes can see, she was not lonely, she was convinced that there is a wait for the results, and she loved the male lead's heart will always stick to it.

But also for that post-marriage, she is also no regrets, because the emphasis from the posters of her wedding ring can also be reflected. From the actor perspective, we can see that actor on the heroine's guilt, and his actress has been hoping for compensation.

In other words, posters, to a certain extent, reflects the theme of the film. Meanwhile, in love the movie, due to plot the relationship between the majority of whom would play with male and female in the relationship between the spindle formed in order to design the poster.


Here are two new film poster of the coming movie, before you watch the movie, can you guess what is the relationship between the actor and the actress?
In the ugly truth, will they have a competition? Will they argue of position of male and female?
And in the twilight –new moon ,will it be a triangle relationship? What will the actress choose?






The ugly Truth
The ugly Truth Official website


(click image for a larger poster)




The twilight-new moon
The twilight-new moon Official website

(click image for a larger poster)








Read More!
April Bride Japanese Official website
The time traveler's wife Official website
The ugly Truth Official website
The twilight-new moon Official website

Movie & Internet series (Finale): I wanna watch movie!

Don't know what you want to watch? Look here! From the previous article, we can find out information of movies, either new nor old one. However, what we should do if we really want to watch movie, but do not know which to watch? In this case, recommendations are needed! You will see some of the movie review websites in the following, hopefully they can help you to decide which to watch!



As I mentioned from the last articles of this series, IMDb is a movie database, but at the same time, it is a place for netizens to give their opinions. For example, you can view a list of reviews of 2012 from this website. The most important thing is, you can view them without login, of course, if you want to give a comment of films, you still need to register an account.






To view movie reviews, you can simply enter a movie name to view it; or you can start from viewing "now playing movies". Besides of these choices, you can select this from the top menu: Movie->Top 250. You can view the Top 250 voted by users. Interestingly, most of them are productions of 90s in Top 10. Then scroll down, you will see a column called "Category", you can view the top 250 from different categories. Maybe you can find your favourite from here!




Like its name rotten tomatoes, the worst movie will definitely have a grade of rotten tomatoes. The reason is, they use a meter called "tomato meter", more positive comments, the tomato would be fresher. The tomatoes are all came from critics of the Internet, you can read all their reviews online.

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.
(Quoted from RottenTomatoes website)

Furthermore, you can view reviews by putting movie titles in the search bar or find from DVDs, now playing movies and the "Best of"! You can find the "best of the rotten tomotoes" by year, genre or all time. Also you can find the Academy Adward's winners on that page.

One of the funny page is the "certified fresh", what is "certified fresh"? See the description from Rotten Tomatoes!

Rotten Tomatoes awards the Certified Fresh accolade to theater releases reviewed by 40 or more critics (including 5 Top Critics) that score at least 75% or higher on the Tomatometer. A film remains Certified Fresh unless its Tomatometer falls below 60%.

It means, the movies which can get "Certified fresh" is guaranteed as Good by 75% of the users and 40 or more critics. Although they may not suit your taste, they are good movies in most of the users' heart.



3. MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine)
A new try! MRQE is founded in 1993, a website for movie reviews. After you arrive MRQE, you may attracted by the little orange bars after the movie titles. It is users' rating and critics' rating. You absolutely know what users' rating means, but what about critics' rating? The critics rating is a formation of critics in many medias, like newspaper, magazines, etc; For example, New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.



You can see all the critics' comments at the same time, if you do not have time, just look for the orange chart! It is a integration of the list of critics. Sometimes you may see a interesting phenomenon: the result between users and critics have a huge difference. To decide to believe who's opinion is depends on your wisdom and your feeling!



It is not just for now playing movies, you can look for the reviews by inputting movie titles on search bar or look into other sections, like DVD, Box-office result of US, etc. Besides of reviews, you also can view the news, trailers or blogs about that movie. You also can look for the recommendation of MRQE's staff, like 2009 summer movie guide, or simply select "Best by genre" or "Best of the 2000s". It does has a column called "Best by actors", but only a few actors can be selected.

For the "Best by genre", it does not like IMDb's one with traditional genres, the MRQE has many special genres, like "Best Workplace Movies", "Best Star Trek" or "Ranking Religion on Film". It is fun and special, you may find out the next movie you want to watch in the spare time!


It is a service provided by MRQE, it used Twitterverse to gain information from Twitter. Therefore, you can see lots of tweets on this site. Of course, as it gain information directly from Twitter, I guess it search tweets by keywords, so you may find something unrelated tweets.




In this site, you can find movies in theatre, DVD and upcoming movies' tweets, just like the main MRQE website. It is also a good way for you to know more people's comment from different sites!


This is also a site used Twiterverse to gain information from Twitter directly. The most significant difference is that it also calculated the results automatically, you can see the percentages of good or bad comments on movies easily, and when you touch the movie titles, it will show four reviews with pictures of good or bad. Moreover, you can sort those tweets in rating, popularity and names.




Unfortunately, as it is a new service, you can only find out new movies' comment on this site.

Also, as tweets are judged by computer automatically, it may occurred some misjudgement. Just like the one above, a user commented Christmas Carol as "highly recommended", however the system misjudged that comment as bad comment, maybe it caused by the negative keyword "unreal".

Nevertheless, I think the misjudgement is just minority case, they will not affect the percentages a lot, mostly 5%, I guess?


Umm...You still cannot find a movie to watch for? Try this!


It is a website for you to find movies that suit your unique taste. It is easy, you just need to input your favourite movie's name, click Like more, then see the results!

Picture Tutorial:


If you want to get the results from the front page, one word is needed:

like: <*input your favourite here*>

Input the whole phase above to the search bar on front page!

Then it will shows the result on the front page without accessing the information page of that movie. After complete your search, you can also use the genre from left to squeeze the search ranges. Although it does not require log in to view the results, but if you create an account, Juuni can help specifically help you to find movies you may like, also you can add some movies into your wishlist.




It is a website specifically recommend movies by clarifying your favourite movie types, it is not following traditional movie genres, they make an effort to re-categorize movies in special genres, like mood, it has five sub-categories: Suspenseful, Stylized, Exciting, Rough and Bleak. You may find your Mr Right on this site! Try it!

Conclusion
Before the century of Internet, movie reviews often seen on newspaper or other print media, however, Internet's bloom make lots of netizens can express their opinions on movies. As we can see, movie review's sites already became more and more integrated with those social communities websites, like Twitter, Facebook, and this definitely is the trend and future of movie reviews and Internet.

Also, movie producer also concern of the power of Internet communities and they can view the opinions from the public instantly after movies aired on theatres. Producers can receive different comments from the Internet, it can also be the tools for their self-improvements. Let's look forward to viewing their improvements!

Read More:
IMDb
RottenTomatoes
MRQE
Flicktweets
Twitcritics
Jinni.com

Twitterverse
Twitter API wiki

Movie & culture series - Movie posters (1)

The above poster are the scary movie posters.
Can you find the common elements in those posters?

Thirst (饑渴誘罪 / KOREA)
http://www.movieposteraddict.com/2007/10/12/it-came-from-korea/
Photo from http://www.pieuvre.ca/contenu/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/thirst_poster.jpg




Ju-on (白色咒怨 / JAPAN)
Photo from http://item.rental.rakuten.co.jp/dvd/p/1045481/%E5%91%AA%E6%80%A8+%E7%99%BD%E3%81%84%E8%80%81%E5%A5%B3








Phobia 2 (5條大路通陰間 / THAILAND)









A Nightmare on Elm Street (猛鬼街 / AMERICA)



Yes! Their background colors mostly are BLACK and RED and they became the main attractions in the movie poster. And they will try to associate with the imagination of the movie in thinking which will make you scary and fear.

By the poster, you will have a first impression of the movie that you may afraid of. And the above poster is from different countries. Even they are both scary movies but they still have different characters as their country.

From the poster of “Thirst”, you can see the actors showed the main action of the vampire which trying to tell you the main idea of the movie in your first sight. Although it is not obviously but Korea movie poster often banned by the south Korea media which some of them can show in public or they can be really horrible.

Because it showed a priest in a sexual position, the original teaser poster of Thirst was banned then replaced in South Korea. According to Variety, “The ban is the work of the South Korea’s Media Rating Board, which has become more strict about the depiction of sexuality these days.” (Quoted from “Thirst” Poster Banned In South Korea)

Related to the Japanese movie, mainly ghost story about retaliation, they usually use the ghost or the main actor of the movie as their attraction of the posters. It can engage people more because it seem scarier and they will have a first taste of the movie when they see the poster.
The effects of the advertisement will be more efficient because it wil make a assumption to the people of the movie. And the contrast of the movie name of the poster can bring a bit phobia to the people.

But why people want to watch the horror movie?  They want to have an exciting moment on the cinema? They want to be afraid of something? Or, especially the boys, they want to hug a girl when she feel scary?

In Psychoanalysis, consciousness is the surface, only the subconscious can reveal the nature of the human psyche. The modern horror film reflects the fear and anxiety and even to the conscious experience of fear to pursue. From the audience's point of view, through the viewing experience, triggered by excitement and joy, thereby eliminating the accumulated real-life negative pressure. Although the horror movie itself is based on the performance for the purpose of terror, but the spirit of analysis which reveals the deep psychological level, the objective is not to deepen the audience's psychological terror, but rather people's negative pressure can be from vent.

Therefore, when we want to watch a horror movie, it is not only have exciting experience of the movie, but also a reflection of the pressure you are facing of .So have fun in the horror movie to reduce your pressure! Don’t just focus on the girl beside you because she may not the real one! =]

At last, please look forward to the next article of Movie & culture series!
 
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